Friday, December 22, 2006

Joe Strummer

Hard to believe it's four years today since we lost Joe Strummer. Now there were loads of songs I could have posted by the great man and i've gone for this 'Island Hopping' b/w '15th Brigade' from this 1989 solo single. It's one of those songs that's little known and I think is well worth the airing. "When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there.” Joe Strummer

Friday, December 15, 2006

Citizen Fish

It's been a busy week for gigs, tonight we went to see Citizen Fish. They were on fine form as well. Good support bands tonight in the shape of The Rejected & This System Kills.I've always enjoyed Mr Lucas' bands & I thought now was as good a time as any to post the song this 'ere blog is named after 'Punks On Postcards' by Culture Shock from the 1987 'Go Wild' LP. As you probably know Culture Shock was the band inbetween the Subhumans & Citizen Fish & to my mind released some of the best stuff of the three, Dick was certainly writing some great lyrics during this time. If you've not got them seek them out. Go Wild, My Son!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The Damned

Went to see the always excellent Damned tonight. One of the first ever bands I saw live. Despite the line up changes and the intervening years they are still a great live show. This is the second time i've seen them this year & they just keep getting better at the moment.Now I know you would probably I posted something off one of the early albums (The Black Album is my favourite album by the way) but today kids we have the solo Captain Sensible single 'The Toys Take Over' b/w 'It's A Sporting Life'. This I think is as good as anything he has ever written for The Damned. 'Toys' is a great piece of dark pop and 'Sporting Life' could have come straight off 'The Black Album'. If your a Damned fan enjoy, if not, well.....

The video is from the Brixton Ace from 1983, and was first shown on the Channel 4 programme 'Whatever You Want' which Keith Allen the comedian introduced. There used to be some great bands on that programme. You will see that Gobbing was still 'Der Rigeur' at the time with Vanian copping one grolly smack on the forehead. 'Curtain Call' is one of my favourite Damned songs which they tonight as an encore.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

The Megaton Men : I'm A Conservative

The Megaton Men were from Newport Gwent and this E.P. came out in 1994. Good E.P. puts me in mind of The Damned & The Stranglers with a bit of Letherface thrown in for good measure.The cover star is Stephen Milligan, who was a Conservative MP and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the notorious arms dealer Jonathan Aitken, then a minister in the Tory government. On 7th February 1994, Milligan was found dead in his London flat, dressed in women's underwear, tied to a chair, with a plastic bag over his head and a satsuma stuffed into his mouth.Anyways! Good E.P. and on Blue Vinyl!

U.K. Subs, Again!

I try not to do re-posts, but i've just come back from seeing the U.K. Subs & well I just had to. Favourite bit of the night for me, was a friend coming up to me just as the opening riff of 'Rockers' started and yelling into my ear, 'I can remember buying this on red vinyl, listening to it and thinking I was in space or something'. They were great tonight, good band with him as well at the moment. See if Charlie can still take you to other worlds. Wayne this is for you.